The rest is just noise

"Coach Lu, the whole country is paying attention to this game."

The referee tonight is Jack O'Donnell, an old acquaintance of Louis, who can be regarded as a fair referee.

"I hope this kind of conflict won't happen again." O'Donnell said tactfully, "You know the league has been paying attention to this series."

Hearing this, Louis smiled and said: "It sounds like it's all our fault? Why do you have this perception?"

O'Donnell looked at the Knicks' players about to take the court and knew what Louie wanted to do.

"What you're about to do will escalate the conflict."

"Jack, I believe you are not a prejudiced person, let me put it this way," Louis put his arm around O'Donnell's shoulders and said affectionately, "Suppose there is a pair of adulterers** Well, forget it, just like Eddie

·Who do you think was at fault for the adultery of the century between Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor? Is it Eddie? He fell in love with his wife just after his best friend died in an accident. He has a problem

Or Elizabeth, who sought comfort from her husband's married friends soon after her husband died? Which one of them is at fault?"

"Uh-huh"

O'Donnell was stunned by Louie's abstract but impeccable metaphor...

"It's hard for you to put the responsibility on someone alone, right? If one of the two people didn't want to do it, then there would be no adultery, so this is the joint responsibility of the two people. So, back to this conflict,

If Larry hadn't dragged Dennis down, the conflict wouldn't have escalated. I don't blame Larry, that's the way he plays the game. But, Jack, are you trying to remind me of this to show that the responsibility lies with New York?

"

O'Donnell couldn't refute Louis: "You know I didn't mean that."

"Of course, I have been pushing the league to establish an award for the best referee of the year. If the league passes my proposal this year, I will definitely give you a vote."

O'Donnell didn't expect such a thing to happen.

"Coach Lu, are you kidding me?"

"How could I joke about something like this?"

In fact, this is not a joke. It should be said that it is not even a joke. It is just a compliment.

But O'Donnell's reaction made Louis think that maybe he could actually make this suggestion at this year's annual meeting.

On the one hand, you can gain the referee's favor. On the other hand, there are the best referees of the year, and naturally there are also the worst referees of the year.

In order to maintain stability, the league will not explicitly set up an award for the worst referee, but satisfactory referees will get the most votes. Those referees who did not get many votes are naturally recognized as bad referees in the circle.

Wouldn't someone with cerebral palsy like Dick Bavetta face up to his business abilities?

This thought occurred for a moment, and Louis decided to focus on the game first and not think about anything else.

The remaining five minutes of the second quarter were difficult for the Celtics.

Because although the Murder Press will be late, he will not be absent.

Originally, this defensive plan that frightened the entire league was specially prepared by Louis for the Celtics.

A few years have passed, and the members of the Murderous Press have come and gone, but now it has finally been fixed, with Wilson, Rodman, Stevens, and Selley as the core framework, and the fifth man always changes according to the characteristics of the opponent.

.

Tonight, the fifth member of the murder squad is Reggie Williams.

As a wing player who came to shoot this summer, he is one of Louis' favorite substitute players.

He is like a smaller black version of Kirilenko. He can do everything on the defensive end and is versatile on the offensive end. If his body is not too fragile, his development prospects are at least All-Stars.

Now, Louis puts him in the murder tight end, taking turns as the fifth man with Doug West and Danny Ainge.

The Celtics suddenly found the game much more difficult.

The murderous press lineup put out by the Knicks is even better than the legendary press lineup that caused a psychological shadow for Boston people in the 1987-88 season.

There are two first-defense leaders, one of whom is DPOY, as well as the more mature Stevens and John Salley.

Jimmie Rodgers replaced Isiah Thomas, hoping to use his speed to break the game.

For the Celtics, letting Thomas break the press is the ideal situation.

But things often don't go as smoothly as they think, because the Knicks will start by guarding the ball to avoid allowing Thomas to easily catch the ball.

Even if he catches the ball, it will be difficult to escape from this kind of defense.

Many old fans of the national basketball team have a wrong impression of Liu Wei, the old scapegoat of the national team: when pressed by the whole court, he can't dribble past half court.

In fact, this impression is very stereotyped, but you can't blame the fans, because Liu Wei was indeed forced to drop the ball and miss a good game at critical moments. Think about Mr. Zhou's sideline ball against Poland. If you know the truth, "Mr. Zhou

"The pass is actually not bad." Can you accept it? I'm afraid not.

Why did Liu Wei leave that impression? Because when he was in office, the national team did not have a reliable substitute for the No. 1 position, so he had to be roughed up for more than 30-35 minutes in every game. There was no problem in the early stage, but he played until the final stage.

, the physical strength tank will not be able to hold it; secondly, the most critical point is that the reason why the National Basketball Team is so afraid of the full-court press is that the small forwards trained in the country during the Yao Shuan era are all 3D tool men. These people

Most of them can't dribble and can't go to the frontcourt to respond when the opponent uses a full-court press. It's too much pressure for the defender to face the opponent's full-court press alone⑴.

Therefore, even if the Celtics can receive the ball every possession, it is delusional to think that one person can break the Knicks' murderous press.

This was proven in the 1988 Eastern Conference Finals.

It's just that the Knicks are more confident and experienced now than they were two years ago.

Rogers hoped that Thomas would buy some time for Bird and Sampson and try to survive these five minutes.

However, in the first minute, the Celtics brought the ball upfield once.

Moreover, Thomas' quick attack aimed directly at the basket was eventually knocked down by Stevens' blocked shot.

Stevens was called for a foul and Thomas fell heavily to the ground.

The angry Thomas got up and wanted to take action, but was stopped by his teammates.

Others on the Knicks court watched eagerly, and if they really took action, the Celtics would definitely not get any advantage.

Watching Thomas curse angrily, Louis found it interesting.

On the opposite side, Jimmy Rogers could only understand K.C Jones's mood when facing the Knicks at this moment.

It makes you angry and powerless. This is the style of the Knicks. They are brutal and self-controlled. They like to use rough fouls to change the mentality of the opponent's players. However, they are rough with their hands, but they know exactly what to do next.

Thomas's two free throws proved that his mind was still intact.

But these two free throws couldn't solve the problem.

In the next few minutes, the Celtics successfully dribbled the ball through the half court 4 times, but only posed a direct threat to the basket twice.

Moreover, they were all stopped by the Knicks with fouls.

They allowed the Celtics to score free throws, but it was impossible to break the full-court press and get to the basket.

For the Knicks, the results of the murderous press were very impressive. Wilson didn't score, and Rodman didn't score either, but the defense of these two made the Celtics numb.

The Knicks' main scoring points during this period were distributed among Williams, Selley and Stevens.

Mainly Williams' outside three-pointers and the other two's pie-eating dunks.

Within 4 minutes, the Knicks launched a 16-6 offensive climax. With only 1 minute left in the first half, they forced the Celtics to replace Bird and Sampson to prevent the point difference from widening further.

Louis waved slowly.

"Obviously, Leader Lu has no intention of reducing the Knicks' defensive intensity."

"No, judging from his rotations, the defensive intensity has even increased."

Louis replaced John Salley and replaced him with Doug West, a physically fit man. This guy has great physical fitness. If he had gone to other teams, he would have been trained as a score-grabbing gangster in the second team, but the Knicks

Find a different approach, insist on positioning him as a defensive hero, and practice his basics from scratch.

West has good savvy and has won the position of the fifth man in the rotation at tight end since his rookie season.

Louis replaced Selly and put him on the field to ensure that the five players on the field could rotate, cover, double-team and counterattack like a fire after seizing the ball.

At this time, the score was 59 to 49.

Before Bird and Sampson came off the court, the score was tied. After the conflict between the two sides, the Knicks launched a murderous press on the Celtics and scored 10 points in four minutes.

Now forced to trade back Bird and Sampson, Rogers hopes to use the Big Three to change the situation. He is too naive.

After Rodman changed positions, he intercepted the Celtics' pass.

Wilson finally got a chance and shot a three-pointer against Bird who didn't change defense in time.

"Whoosh!"

The Celtics struggled to get through the half by passing the ball. They originally wanted Sampson to take advantage of his height, but as soon as he got the ball, he was flanked by three Knicks and could only pass the ball.

Although the ball was passed, John Long, who received the ball, was already being watched.

Passing the ball to others, the Knicks' defensive rotations were also in place.

The Knicks took the advantage of their five-wing lineup without pure inside players to the extreme. The Celtics were helpless and failed to score until the 24-second buzzer.

Then came the Knicks' last possession before the end of the first half.

Wilson took the ball, changed direction and passed Long, breaking through and passing to Williams on the weak side.

The Celtics didn't know how good this guy was, but they actually didn't step forward when they saw him open, as if the three-pointers he made before didn't count.

Williams' three-pointer frightened the Celtics.

Before I knew it, the point difference had reached 16 points.

There are still 7 seconds left before the end of the first half.

⑴Guo Ailun, who is generally recognized as dribbling better than Liu Wei, was pressed hard by Australia's second team in the Asian Cup or World Qualifiers in 2017 or 2018 and could not pass halftime. Some people may want to say that Guo Ailun had no problem dribbling past halftime in the World Series.

But my opinion is that after Yao Huang retired, when the national basketball team competed in the world competition, it was not so strong that people needed to use full-court press to target your weak back line. Just like playing League of Legends, you have a huge equipment advantage.

A few flat A's can kill someone's A's, so what's the point of showing off their skills?